Paul Gillis

Paul Gillis
Date of birth	December 31, 1963
place of birth	Toronto , Ontario , Canada
size	180 cm
Weight	90 kg
position	center
Shot hand	Left
Draft
NHL Entry Draft	1982 , 2nd lap, 34th position in Nordiques de Québec
Career stations
1980-1982	Niagara Falls Flyers
1982-1983	North Bay Centennials
1983-1991	Nordiques de Québec
1991-1992	Chicago Blackhawks Indianapolis Ice
1992-1993	Hartford Whalers

Paul Gillis
Coaching stations
1994-1995	Springfield Falcons
1995-1997	Windsor Spitfires
1997-1999	Quad City Mallards
1999-2000	Guelph Storm
2000-2002	New Haven Knights
2002-2005	Quad City Mallards
2005-2006	Danbury Trashers
2006-2007	Elmira Jackals
2007-2011	Odessa Jackalopes
2011-2013	Odessa Jackalopes

Paul Christopher Gillis (born December 31, 1963 in Toronto , Ontario ) is a former Canadian ice hockey player and coach who played 668 games for the Nordiques de Québec , Chicago Blackhawks and Hartford Whalers in the course of his playing career between 1980 and 1993 National Hockey League (NHL) has contested on the position of the center . After the end of his career, Gillis, who embodied the grinder player type during his playing days , worked for the most part in the United Hockey League (UHL) and Central Hockey League (CHL) as a coach until 2013 . His older brother Mike was also a professional ice hockey player in the NHL.

Career

Gillis spent his junior years initially over two years between 1980 and 1982 with the Niagara Falls Flyers in the Ontario Hockey League (OHL). During this time, the defensive striker , who is considered a grinder, collected 128 scorer points in 129 missions - 89 of them in his second year alone. This ultimately gave him the early election in the 1982 NHL Entry Draft by the Nordiques de Québec from the National Hockey League (NHL), which selected him in the second round in 34th place. The attacker, who went on the ice in his third OHL game year after moving the franchise for the North Bay Centennials , was then brought into the NHL for the first time by the Nordiques in the course of the 1982/83 season . There he completed six of the seven season games that he played for Québec that year at the turn of 1982/83. He spent the rest of the season with the Centennials.

With the beginning of the 1983/84 season , the 19-year-old was then - with the exception of a few appearances for the Fredericton Express farm team from the American Hockey League (AHL) - firmly in the squad of the Franco-Canadian NHL franchise, which he held until March 1991 belonged to. During this time, Gillis developed into a solid defensive striker who helped ensure that the team in the Stanley Cup playoffs in 1985 reached the final of the Prince of Wales Conference , where it failed at the Philadelphia Flyers . In the following game year he completed his best year in the NHL with 19 goals and 43 points. However, the Canadian was also part of the team that turned into one of the league's worse teams at the end of the 1980s. So the joint move with Dan Vincelette to the Chicago Blackhawks in exchange for Ryan McGill and Mike McNeill was only the logical consequence to get the Nordiques back on the road to success.

With the Blackhawks, however, Gillis did not find a new sporting home. Although he completed the remainder of the 1990/91 season 15 games for Chicago; in the following game year, however, only two more joined and he spent a large part of the season in the International Hockey League (IHL) at the farm club Indianapolis Ice . Therefore, the striker left the Chicago organization after a good ten months and moved to the Hartford Whalers for future consideration . In the service of the Whalers, he completed his last NHL season in the 1992/93 game year , before he retired from active sport at the age of 29 - battered by numerous injuries from previous years.

As a result of his early retirement, Gillis remained loyal to ice hockey and worked as a trainer from then on. In the 1994/95 season, he was the first head coach in the history of the Springfield Falcons from the AHL. He then returned to his Canadian homeland for two years, where he looked after the junior team of the Windsor Spitfires in the OHL. Then Gillis worked again with the professionals and spent two successful years with the Quad City Mallards in the United Hockey League (UHL). This he led in the 1997/98 season to win the Colonial Cup . Then he tried again in the junior division in the OHL - this time for a year with the Guelph Storm .

For the 2000/01 season Gillis moved back to the UHL. There he was primarily responsible for the newly founded New Haven Knights for two years ; from 2002 to 2005 followed his second term with the Quad City Mallards. Between 2005 and 2007, the Danbury Trashers and Elmira Jackals were two more one-year engagements in the UHL, before Gillis moved to the Central Hockey League (CHL). For four years - also his longest tenure with a team - he coached the Odessa Jackalopes until they were dissolved in spring 2011. He was responsible for the then-founded franchise of the American junior league North American Hockey League (NAHL) for another two years. After the 2012/13 season, the Canadian retired from ice hockey after a total of 33 years.

Achievements and Awards

• 1998 Colonial Cup win with the Quad City Mallards

Career statistics

				Regular season						Playoffs
season	team	league		Sp	T	V	Pt	SM		Sp	T	V	Pt	SM
1980/81	Niagara Falls Flyers	OHL		59	14th	19th	33	165		-	-	-	-	-
1981/82	Niagara Falls Flyers	OHL		65	27	62	89	247		5	1	5	6th	26th
1982/83	North Bay Centennials	OHL		61	34	52	86	151		6th	1	3	4th	26th
1982/83	Nordiques de Québec	NHL		7th	0	2	2	2		-	-	-	-	-
1983/84	Nordiques de Québec	NHL		57	8th	9	17th	59		1	0	0	0	2
1983/84	Fredericton Express	AHL		18th	7th	8th	15th	47		-	-	-	-	-
1984/85	Nordiques de Québec	NHL		77	14th	28	42	168		18th	1	7th	8th	73
1985/86	Nordiques de Québec	NHL		80	19th	24	43	203		3	0	2	2	14th
1986/87	Nordiques de Québec	NHL		76	13	26th	39	267		13	2	4th	6th	65
1987/88	Nordiques de Québec	NHL		80	7th	10	17th	164		-	-	-	-	-
1988/89	Nordiques de Québec	NHL		79	15th	25th	40	163		-	-	-	-	-
1989/90	Nordiques de Québec	NHL		71	8th	14th	22nd	234		-	-	-	-	-
1990/91	Nordiques de Québec	NHL		49	3	8th	11	91		2	0	0	0	2
1990/91	Chicago Blackhawks	NHL		13	0	5	5	53		2	0	0	0	2
1991/92	Chicago Blackhawks	NHL		2	0	0	0	6th		-	-	-	-	-
1991/92	Indianapolis Ice	IHL		42	10	15th	25th	170		-	-	-	-	-
1991/92	Hartford Whalers	NHL		12	0	2	2	48		5	0	1	1	0
1992/93	Hartford Whalers	NHL		21st	1	1	2	40		-	-	-	-	-
OHL total				185	75	133	208	563		11	2	8th	10	52
NHL overall				624	88	154	242	1498		44	3	14th	17th	158

( Legend for player statistics: Sp or GP = games played; T or G = goals scored; V or A = assists scored ; Pkt or Pts = scorer points scored ; SM or PIM = penalty minutes received ; +/− = plus / minus balance; PP = overpaid goals scored ; SH = underpaid goals scored ; GW = winning goals scored; ¹  play-downs / relegation )

Web links

• Paul Gillis at legendsofhockey.net ( Memento from March 3, 2016 in the Internet Archive )
• Paul Gillis at eliteprospects.com (English)